Another example. A blogger I follow went to Mexico with 8 friends for a long weekend. All tested negative to enter resort and tested again negative to fly home.
After they flew home, one of the 8 felt symptoms and tested positive. Within days all 8 tested positive. All vaccinated, 3 boostered
The blogger reported that most of their activities were outside. Dined outside, pool and bar, all activities outside.
I’m just saying this because any travel, any gatherings are going to carry some risk of contracting covid. With being vaccinated, your risk is most likely, almost certainly to have a mild case. Even going to the hospital can mean receiving treatment but being released without some of the risks that the unvaccinated have
I don’t know anyone personally who feels this way, even my most Deep Red relatives and neighbors. They all feel if folks want to keep isolating or whatever, they can. They just don’t want those isolating to make everyone do the same due to their fears.
H has been avoiding going to township meetings during the pandemic. Normally township meetings are part of his job as an engineer - getting projects approved, etc. Not one single township has made him appear in person. Calling in or Zoom have been allowed without penalty. If anyone thinks less of him because he’s choosing that option, it hasn’t affected his quantity of work. Many folks in these townships refer customers to him.
I think the news shows a place or two where masks are forbidden or similar. Those are outliers, not the norm - at least anywhere we’ve been. I haven’t seen a single place anywhere we’ve gone in several states that has such a sign or verbal notice. If I did, I’d take my money elsewhere.
So D2 flew from California to NYC for a long weekend. She left 12/9 and returned 12/13. H, D1, D2 and I drove to Salt Lake Saturday to ski 4 days before Christmas. D2 skied with us on Sunday at Deer Valley. Monday morning D2 woke up feeling congested and warm. She was running a low grade fever so she took Tylenol and went back to sleep. The 3 of us went off to ski for the day. When we got home that night D2 was still not feeling well. We brought home covid tests with us and she did one Monday night and was positive. D2 felt worse yesterday so H stayed back at the Airbnb while D1 and I went skiing. We checked the guidelines for exposure to Covid without symptoms and it said we don’t need to isolate. We are wearing KN95 masks in our Airbnb around D2. D1 and H are off to ski today and I’ll stay with D2. She is definitely feeling better today.
D2’s roommate’s dad is head of pulmonary medicine and he told D2 to take Sudafed for congestion and alternate between Tylenol and Motrin for aches or fever and to keep hydrated and rest.
All 4 of us are vaccinated and had our boosters so unfortunately I think D2 drew the short straw spending a long weekend in NYC. She was impressed with the Covid protocols everywhere she went, but I think with how Omicron spreads so easily and with NYC having so many cases she was just unlucky. We are heading home tomorrow and hopefully the rest of us will continue to stay healthy. We will just keep to ourselves over Christmas and we will all get tested next week if we continue to have no symptoms just to make sure we are not asymptomatic.
We are supposed to take another road trip to ski at Mammoth the second week of January so we hope we will all stay healthy for that.
We either cook or get takeout at our Airbnb and still pack our own lunches to eat on the slopes while skiing. We mask up when we go inside. We are doing all that we can do at this point. Covid is not going away and we are trying to navigate living with it.
that one sounds like the person caught it on the way to mexico or right before, but did not have enough virus to test postive for a long weekend. That is the trick of this. I could have it right now. I just tested negative. Not enough virus in me yet.
In two days I am positive and have exposed a bunch of family.
We are noticing that folks who were hyper-vigilant a year ago are not being nearly as careful now. Last year, my 90 yo MIL was housebound in an elegant but tiny downtown apartment in the best neighborhood in her city. This year, she flew to Florida early in the month and plans to stay for 6 months. Probably OK. We stayed in her house last. year for 5 weeks and were exceedingly careful. Mostly shopped at an outdoor market and occasionally at a supermarket where masking was required. Yesterday, she went to an outlet mall where she and my BIL who took her to Florida were the only masked people.
Yesterday we spoke with a friend (former lawyer who can be a little heavy-handed). Last spring, she berated ShawWife for planning to drive to Florida in February. Our friend told us that she was leaving in a couple of days for her apartment in New York. We said (without the harangue) that the numbers (cases, positivity, hospitalizations) were up in NYC but were also up in her zip code (where vax rates are in the high 70s). We asked if it was really a good idea to go. Got a sensible answer (about how she stays in her apartment and people in her building are all masked in the lobby and she doesn’t go to stores (except of course when she does) that is partly right and partly wishful thinking. She could just stay here as she has a house in our exurb where she can see people only when she wants to and would get together last winter/spring only on her deck) A third friend who is about 80 was going to get together with us outside for a hike. He says he is not going to meet folks outdoors anymore here, but wants to stop by and visit when we are in Florida. There generally seems to be a disconnect between past behavior and current behavior (though this will probably change when the problem seems much closer to home).
For us and many we know, vaccines - and now boosters - make the difference. Even if one gets Covid while vaxxed with boosters, it’s been mild cases or asymptomatic. Without vaxxes it’s what straw you drew with far more bad ones in the mix.
I agree with behavior changing for many after they are vaccinated and have their boosters. I believe now that we are almost 2 years into Covid we all need to understand that it’s not going away. We all have to do what makes us feel safe with our families and friends, but I’m not going to berate my fully vaccinated family and friends for living their lives. H and I will be doing several road trips over the next couple of months and home Covid tests are now on our packing list.
We are in Egypt right now. Just had our negative COVID test for return to the US. The rest of our tour group returned yesterday, and all had negative tests. We debated going on this trip, after cancelling numerous others, and decided that since we were triple vaxxed and Egypt required proof of vaccination and negative COVID PCR test for entry, we were probably safer than in many places in the US. We wore N95 masks at the airport and on flights. Our tour group of 23 was our “bubble” since we were eating and traveling together. Indoors and in crowded places we wore surgical masks. Egypt required masks for the indoor sites like the Egyptian Museum, Tombs in the valley if the kings, etc. It was a fantastic trip!
We realize we are not getting any younger, and believe that COVID will become endemic. We’d rather not be hospitalized in Egypt, but have excellent medical evacuation insurance. We will be happy to get back to the US, though. We are assuming all of us will get omicron at some points and are just hoping our cases are mild.
Apparently masking has entered my subconscious. I don’t often remember dreams, but when I do, they generally involve travel and large buildings (analyze that if you like). Last night, I dreamt that I was on a road trip with my husband to meet an old friend of his. (No, I didn’t dream that we went back to Manderley.) In the dream, we stopped at a large outdoor plaza for lunch. You had to go inside to order, and I pulled on my KN95 mask as we went in. Husband had his under his nose - as far as I know, he always wears it properly. About half of the dream customers were masked. We then took our food outside to eat.
We are scheduled for a trip to French Polynesia early February. It’s been set up so that a cancellation 3 days prior to departure only results in the loss of the inter-island flights. Even those get the funds put on deposit - but they must be used within a year.
In order to get to the SWAN (sleeps well at night) stage I needed to make sure we had ample medical coverage. I put that in place yesterday. And, as we get closer and surer of actually taking this trip I’ll add another layer of medical coverage.
In speaking with someone in the industry I asked about FP being in the ‘don’t go unless you have too’ category. The response was interesting - Israel was on the ‘danger’ list for years, yet it was one of the safest places for tourists. Yes, I know a virus is different.
DD - pregnant and due in January is encouraging us to go. Basically, we’ve put our life on hold for two years. We, also, aren’t getting younger (this is always a surprise to me). I figure we have another 12-15 years of easy travel. That’s really not all that long.
So…fingers crossed that we will be swimming with the manta rays in February.
The consequences are probably not as severe post-vax (and, anecdotally but not from careful studies, less severe from Omicron than from Delta). But, the probability of an omicron infection is much pretty higher. My big concerns are 1) getting treated elsewhere as opposed to the good hospitals where I live (in case treatment is needed and 2) Long Covid. It looks like the probability of Long Covid is 4 to 5 times less for the vaccinated.
I’d be more interested in taking risks if I thought a mild case of Omicron would create immunity for further variants, but I have read that there is no evidence for example, that prior infections provide any protection against Omicron infection.
As Omicron surges, we are going to hunker down a bit – no eating or spending time in enclosed spaces with others who are unmasked. If I understand it, my wearing a mask helps me a little and you a lot, so I will generally avoid spending time in spaces where people aren’t reciprocating. We will drive from New England to Florida like we did last winter rather than fly. In New England, we may go back to buying via Instacart or other delivery services. In Florida, we buy most of our stuff at an outside farmer’s market. At some point the rapid Omicron surge is likely to become a rapid Omicron decline. Then, life will be normal again until the next variant comes along.
We have been very cautious with Covid from the beginning, and with Omicron have stopped dining indoors in restaurants. But we have a trip scheduled to Kauai at the beginning of January that I am now nervous about. This trip was rescheduled using credit from a summer 2020 trip that was canceled, as we wanted to use before the credits expired. We live in an area with 90% vax rate, and all 4 of us (H and two kids) are double-vaxxed and boostered. We are planning on wearing N95 masks for the flights, have a rental car, and would only be doing takeout or outside dining in Kauai. Unless anything changes drastically in the next few weeks, we are still planning on going, but starting to second guess myself.
I had the same concerns when we went to Kauai in Oct. It was at a time when the governor was asking people not to go there, but we had some prepaid travel that was use it or lose it, so we went. It was the first time we had traveled since the pandemic started and we had a great time. We ate mostly takeout - twice had open air dining at Keoki’s in the Poipu area. We wore KN95 masks on the plane. I hope you have fun and your family stays safe.
I live on Oahu. People here are mostly fairly good about masking wearing, though masks are more often off in Waikiki. Your plans sound pretty reasonable. I wouldn’t be able to wear a properly fitting n95 mask for the duration of airport plus flight.
My lung doc said he’s seen more unnecessary suffering and death in the past 18 months than the prior 47years of his career.
He cautioned me not to let other people’s good luck weaken my steadfastness about following safe practices and staying healthy. Good luck is not a strategy.
Wearing a quality, good fitting mask consistently and avoiding indoor dining with crowds and strangers are major keys, imho.
If I’m lucky enough to hit 90, and still able to be active, I’m doing whatever the $%^& I want
My daughter and her husband honeymooned to Maui & Kauai in October (after postponing the wedding & honeymoon from October 2020). They were very vigilant with N95 mask wearing and had a wonderful time - neither contracted Covid.
My daughter’s friend is leaving next month for her honeymoon trip to the Maldives. Not sure if this is true but my daughter told me that they are required to prove that they have enough money to remain the Maldives in quarantine if they should have a positive test upon arrival or at any time that they are there. Unsure if this is a requirement of the government or the resort they are staying at - but I guess they don’t want people whining about going through their life’s savings while they wait for a negative test so they can leave.
I feel like I’m the only one not traveling right now. My social media feeds are full of pics of friends’ families in NYC, Italy, Disney, Hawaii, cruises, etc.
